1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a machine for applying partly adhesive straps to relative products.
More specifically, the present invention relates to a machine for applying partly adhesive straps to relative products, each of which is defined by an article and by a sheet of packing material enclosing the article. In the following description, the articles referred to are rolls of paper considered either singly or in groups comprising a number of adjacent, aligned rolls of paper, to which the following description refers purely by way of example.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the manufacture of rolls of paper, the rolls are formed into packages, each produced by wrapping a sheet of plastic or similar packaging material about one or more rolls of paper; and the finished packages are fed to a so-called “strapping” machine for applying a partly adhesive strap to each package, i.e., a strap enabling the package to be carried easily by the consumer.
The machine normally comprises a conveying device for feeding each package in steps in a first given direction to a packing station having a transverse pusher, which moves the package in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction and against a partly adhesive strap, which is thus folded substantially into a U about the package.
Known machines of the above type have several drawbacks, mainly due to step operation of the conveying device reducing the output rate of the machine.
Another drawback of known machines of the above type is that, for relatively high operating speeds, the pusher must have at least two degrees of freedom to reduce downtime by traveling back and forth along different paths. Pushers of this type are normally bulky and expensive, and, over and above a given operating speed, generate inertial vibration which is rarely acceptable.